Adaptive Guidance Systems for Hypersonic Reusable Launch Vehicles 1

Abstract — This paper presents an adaptive guidance system approach applied to hypersonic Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs). After an effector failure, it is assumed that the inner-closed-loop system utilizes a reconfigurable control algorithm to recover nominal maneuvering capabilities to the extent possible. However, nominal performance will typically not be fully recovered for RLVs, and the outer-loop guidance system must account for the degraded vehicle response. Two main approaches for the adaptive guidance system are presented. The first approach augments the existing production guidance system by adding adaptation capabilities. A case study shows that stability is maintained following a primary pitch effector failure. This is achieved by adapting gains in the guidance feedback loops. However, it is shown that the trajectory commands to the guidanc